2.6. Explanations of Attachment Flashcards
What is attachment?
Adaptive and innate
What does an innate drive to be attached lead to?
Long term benefits
What does attachment and imprinting ensure?
Protection and food
What does is mean if behaviour is adaptive?
If attached, increased survival and reproductive chances.
What is the monotropic theory?
- Bowlby’s theory places importance on a unique “monotropic” relationship with mother figure, this is more important than any other
- This need not be the biological mother but a mother figure.
- The more time spent with the primary caregiver the better.
- Law of continuity
- Law of accumulated separation.
- Person acts as a secure base
What is the law of continuity?
The more constant and predictable a child’s care, the better the quality of their attachment.
What is the law of accumulated separation?
The effect of every separation from the mother add up and safest dose is therefore a zero dose.
What are social releasers?
- Babies are born with set of innate social releasers to facilitate bond, like smiling, cooing, crying and gripping that encourage and activate adult attention.
- Reciprocal process - both mother and baby have innate predisposition to become attached and social releasers trigger caregiver response.
- Leads to interactional synchrony
What is a critical period?
- Notion of critical/ sensitive period around 2 yrs old when the infant attachment system is active.
- A period where a child is very sensitive - if not attachment is formed in this time period it will be difficult to form one later on.
What is the internal working model?
- A child develops an IWM which is a blueprint for future relationships.
- Starts as a relationship between caregiver and infant, through this relationship we develop a model about future emotional relationships.
- Called a model as it serves as a model from what to expect from future relationships
- A child that has poor treatment will tend to form further poor relationships as they expect such treatment from others.
- Impacts on how a child will parent - functional vs dysfunctional families
Strength: evidence to support the role of social releasers
- Brazelton et al instructed primary attachment figures to ignore their babies social releasers
- Babies initially showed some distress but eventually some curled up and lay motionless.
- Supports idea that social releasers play an important role in attachment development.
Strength: evidence supports role of internal working model
- Internal working model predicts that patterns of attachment will be passed from one generation to the next.
- Bailey et al studied 99 mothers. Those with poor attachment to their own parents were more likely to have 1 yr olds who were poorly attached.
- Supports Bowlby’s idea of an internal working model of attachment as it has been passed through families.
- However, there are other influences on social development. E.g. a baby’s genetically influenced personality is important in the development of social development, including later parenting style.
- Suggests Bowlby overemphasised the importance of the IWM in development.
Weakness: concept of Monotropy lacks validity
- Relationship with primary attachment figure may just be stronger than other attachments rather than different in quality like Bowlby believed.
- Other family members may develop attachments with the baby that have the same qualities such as comfort and a secure base from which to explore.
- Means Bowlby may have been wrong to suggest that there’s a unique quality to a child’s primary attachment figure.
Weakness: Bowlby underestimated role of father
- Saw father’s role as primarily economic, the breadwinner and had nothing to do with the upbringing of the child.
- Bowlby’s theory is an outdated, sexist view, importance of equal responsibility for childcare in many families/ father as primary caregiver nowadays.
